Providing information, education, and training to build knowledge, develop skills, and change attitudes that will lead to increased independence, productivity, self determination, integration and inclusion (IPSII) for people with developmental disabilities and their families.

Advocacy Groups Audited Polling Places For
AccessibilityMarch 9, 2004

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK--A disability
rights group visited polling places during last Tuesday's Democratic primary
and found some new and some old barriers to voters with disabilities.

According to a brief story in Friday's Democrat and Chronicle newspaper,
board members and staff members of the Regional Center for Independent Living
(RCIL) visited eight election sites that had problems with access last
November. They found barriers at five of those locations.

One polling site had a wheelchair lift, but it didn't work. This was an
improvement from November because at that time election inspectors weren't even
able to locate the key to find out that it didn't work.

Another site had an elevator to take a voter in a wheelchair up to the
polling place. Once there, however, he could not reach the voting machines.

"For an American citizen, this is unacceptable," said Jim Leary, a board
member for RCIL, who added that disability rights advocates will continue to
monitor voting sites.

The GCDD is funded under the provisions of P.L. 106-402. The federal law also provides funding to the Minnesota Disability Law Center,the state Protection and Advocacy System, and to the Institute on Community Integration, the state University Center for Excellence. The Minnesota network of programs works to increase the IPSII of people with developmental disabilities and families into community life.